50pin? That sounds like SCSI-2, narrow SCSI 2 IIRC.

The picture ain't the highest res, but counting from a key on a plug to the end there are 13 holes.... If forty, that count would be about 10.

Does the CDROM have a power connector, too? Just wondering if perhaps Companq used IDE, but then a 50 pin cable to carry power, too.

Double check what the CDROM actually is. As a SFF machine, I doubt it has a soundcard with a CDROM controller, then a proprietary interface (the pre-ATAPI/IDE CDROM era). But SCSI in a Compaq SFF? Some workstation, maybe, but an SFF to me says standard Excel/Word machine, not CAD and performance.

progman.exe wrote on 2024-05-20, 14:03:

50pin? That sounds like SCSI-2, narrow SCSI 2 IIRC. […]
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50pin? That sounds like SCSI-2, narrow SCSI 2 IIRC.

The picture ain't the highest res, but counting from a key on a plug to the end there are 13 holes.... If forty, that count would be about 10.

Does the CDROM have a power connector, too? Just wondering if perhaps Companq used IDE, but then a 50 pin cable to carry power, too.

Double check what the CDROM actually is. As a SFF machine, I doubt it has a soundcard with a CDROM controller, then a proprietary interface (the pre-ATAPI/IDE CDROM era). But SCSI in a Compaq SFF? Some workstation, maybe, but an SFF to me says standard Excel/Word machine, not CAD and performance.

The CD Rom gets power and outputs audio trough the same cable. Cable is same on both ends.

Machine is P3 600 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 4 MB GPU. HDD uses standard IDE cable.

Have you tried googling for a

IDC cable 50 pin 2mm pitch

?

edit:
I see one on ebay for $5 from china. 181648298901
or aliexpress 4000168433696

edit2: msg sent already a while ago.

weedeewee wrote on 2024-05-20, 17:25:

Have you tried googling for a […]
Show full quote

Have you tried googling for a

IDC cable 50 pin 2mm pitch

?

edit:
I see one on ebay for $5 from china. 181648298901
or aliexpress 4000168433696

IDC I did not. I tried IDE 50 pins cable. Let me try yours.

I was able to find some, but none ships to my Country! Then I used ebay app, which is set to my country, and the cheepest one with the shipping was 20+ euros.
I am in Austria.

@weedeewee, could you please PM the link to me, from one you found?

Ok, I was able to find a cable based on weedeewee advice on aliexpress. Will see if it will fit when it arrives.

Thank you all, for promt response.

I have a very similar 50pin header for optical drive on a DigiPOS compact point of sale PC. Someone on the thread for those systems tested the pins and concluded that the extra pins beyond 44 aren't actually used, and a normal 2.5" IDE 44pin cable would work!

Sure enough, using a 44 pin cable, aligned to pin 1 (I had to cut off the key block) works fine. And the bracket on the back of the optical drive can easily be replaced with one with normal CD-Audio 4 pin out.

I wonder if Compaq *actually* routed the CD-Audio over the extra pins 45-50, or just intended that you'd have "digital CD audio" enabled in Win98 settings?

justin1985 wrote on 2024-05-21, 08:11:

I have a very similar 50pin header for optical drive on a DigiPOS compact point of sale PC. Someone on the thread for those systems tested the pins and concluded that the extra pins beyond 44 aren't actually used, and a normal 2.5" IDE 44pin cable would work!

Sure enough, using a 44 pin cable, aligned to pin 1 (I had to cut off the key block) works fine. And the bracket on the back of the optical drive can easily be replaced with one with normal CD-Audio 4 pin out.

I wonder if Compaq *actually* routed the CD-Audio over the extra pins 45-50, or just intended that you'd have "digital CD audio" enabled in Win98 settings?

Interesting. So where the power goes trough?

I bought 2 cables 50 pins on aliexpress (wrote that on previous post) and they didn't fit, so needed to cut 1 mm of plastic on both side. After I managed to connect it, CD spins in drive but the CD drive and CD are not recognized.
So my purchase isn't good.
What I noticed is that the connector at the end of the cable is twisted for 180 degrees comparing to original cable, so I wonder if I can make somehow this to work? 😒

boby wrote on 2024-05-28, 15:40:

Interesting. So where the power goes trough? […]
Show full quote

justin1985 wrote on 2024-05-21, 08:11:

I have a very similar 50pin header for optical drive on a DigiPOS compact point of sale PC. Someone on the thread for those systems tested the pins and concluded that the extra pins beyond 44 aren't actually used, and a normal 2.5" IDE 44pin cable would work!

Sure enough, using a 44 pin cable, aligned to pin 1 (I had to cut off the key block) works fine. And the bracket on the back of the optical drive can easily be replaced with one with normal CD-Audio 4 pin out.

I wonder if Compaq *actually* routed the CD-Audio over the extra pins 45-50, or just intended that you'd have "digital CD audio" enabled in Win98 settings?

Interesting. So where the power goes trough?

I bought 2 cables 50 pins on aliexpress (wrote that on previous post) and they didn't fit, so needed to cut 1 mm of plastic on both side. After I managed to connect it, CD spins in drive but the CD drive and CD are not recognized.
So my purchase isn't good.
What I noticed is that the connector at the end of the cable is twisted for 180 degrees comparing to original cable, so I wonder if I can make somehow this to work? 😒

That's annoying.

Is there an arrow to indicate pin 1 on both connectors of the cable ?
There should be and it should be indicating the same wire. as in both arrows indicate the red colored wire.
If they are then I'm assuming the pinout would be good.
No clue on why the detection would fail aside from bad drive.

weedeewee wrote on 2024-05-28, 15:59:

That's annoying. […]
Show full quote

boby wrote on 2024-05-28, 15:40:

Interesting. So where the power goes trough? […]
Show full quote

justin1985 wrote on 2024-05-21, 08:11:

I have a very similar 50pin header for optical drive on a DigiPOS compact point of sale PC. Someone on the thread for those systems tested the pins and concluded that the extra pins beyond 44 aren't actually used, and a normal 2.5" IDE 44pin cable would work!

Sure enough, using a 44 pin cable, aligned to pin 1 (I had to cut off the key block) works fine. And the bracket on the back of the optical drive can easily be replaced with one with normal CD-Audio 4 pin out.

I wonder if Compaq *actually* routed the CD-Audio over the extra pins 45-50, or just intended that you'd have "digital CD audio" enabled in Win98 settings?

Interesting. So where the power goes trough?

I bought 2 cables 50 pins on aliexpress (wrote that on previous post) and they didn't fit, so needed to cut 1 mm of plastic on both side. After I managed to connect it, CD spins in drive but the CD drive and CD are not recognized.
So my purchase isn't good.
What I noticed is that the connector at the end of the cable is twisted for 180 degrees comparing to original cable, so I wonder if I can make somehow this to work? 😒

That's annoying.

Is there an arrow to indicate pin 1 on both connectors of the cable ?
There should be and it should be indicating the same wire. as in both arrows indicate the red colored wire.
If they are then I'm assuming the pinout would be good.
No clue on why the detection would fail aside from bad drive.

Ok, so rotating the connector for 180 degrees worked! Cable has this notch, so you can't plug it as you want. Rotating connector allowed this.

P.S. If someone came across same problem, aliexpress cables (from above) worked, but needed modification. At least they were cheep.

boby wrote on 2024-05-28, 15:40:

justin1985 wrote on 2024-05-21, 08:11:

I have a very similar 50pin header for optical drive on a DigiPOS compact point of sale PC. Someone on the thread for those systems tested the pins and concluded that the extra pins beyond 44 aren't actually used, and a normal 2.5" IDE 44pin cable would work!

Sure enough, using a 44 pin cable, aligned to pin 1 (I had to cut off the key block) works fine. And the bracket on the back of the optical drive can easily be replaced with one with normal CD-Audio 4 pin out.

I wonder if Compaq *actually* routed the CD-Audio over the extra pins 45-50, or just intended that you'd have "digital CD audio" enabled in Win98 settings?

Interesting. So where the power goes trough?

44-pin IDE includes power as standard - pins 41 and 42 are +5v: https://old.pinouts.ru/HD/Ata44Internal_pinout.shtml

It looks like there are a few different variants of the 50-pin IDE though: some include the audio on pins 1 - 4, others don't. I guess the Digipos might be unusual! It is discussed in this thread. Testing where ground is using a multimeter would given you a definitive answer.

Glad you got it working with the AliExpress cable though!

Yep, the first pins on the 50-pin slim IDE CD connector are for analog audio, assuming of course the drive supports it (just like on the "desktop PC size" models 😀 ), so that ought to be reflected in what comes out of the mechanical adapter!

Would a motherboard care for that - well, that's obviously a separate question, but I suspect the answer will be yes, because:
- at that time, playing a CD directly was still useful for listening to music while doing something else without quickly filling your disk (with MPthree's), and doing that without DAE pretty much eliminates any CPU/bus load associated with that
- it doesn't really cost more to wire it up (unlike with desktop drives where it's an extra cable, but even there it was still a standard part)
- not all contemporary drives support it
- there was a bigger variety of popular OSes (even sticking to the MS ones) and not all of them supported DAE, at all or by default (isn't it normally off in 98?)
- as above but with programs (microsoft cd player because it follows windows's setting, winamp 2)

And now something somewhat different - 44-pin IDE is actually up to 50 2mm Dupont pins (the usual 44 + up to 3 columns of jumpers, usually 2), and if you look at the Teac CD-44E as used in the Thinkpad 365XD https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/6cYId … sdSxBV6cr.large not only are the jumpers connected to the motherboard, but there are 4 added pins on the opposite end for the analog audio (and the motherboard connector is even longer because it has floppy signals on the left) 😀